What a load of crap! The author of this article wrongly assumes that strong second amendment supporters also support the Patriot Act. While it might have seemed necessary after 9/11, the Patriot Act powers were soon used in drug and prostitution cases. Everything but terrorism. Whether or not one supports the laws against prostitution and drugs, they are what they are. Police should not use Patriot Act powers for anything other than national security and terrorism. Criminals are usually dumb enough to catch using conventional means. The Patriot Act was wrong then and it's still wrong today. Has anyone else noticed that Mr. Hope & Change has strengthened the Patriot Act?

Bottom line here: the author of this article is anti-gun and simply trying to distort the issue with the nonsense in this article. Every other person I know who is strongly in favor of gun rights also supports the rest of the Bill of Rights.

Just read (http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130201/suspended-jail-term-g...):
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Suspended jail term for German school massacre dad
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A German court on Friday handed down an 18-month suspended sentence to the father of a 17-year-old boy who went on a rampage at his former school, shooting 15 dead before turning the gun on himself.
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The court in the southwestern city of Stuttgart found Joerg Kretschmer, a 54-year-old businessman, guilty of manslaughter and of breaking gun laws.
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His son Tim, 17, was able to take his father's 9mm semi-automatic Beretta pistol in March 2009 and use it in his killing spree in the southern German town of Winnenden.
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Fearing a break-in, Kretschmer kept his gun by the bedside, rather than locking it away, a mistake that cost the lives of nine of Tim's fellow students, three teachers and three others.
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The Stuttgart court was ruling on an appeal after an earlier sentence of a 21-month suspended sentence. This 2011 judgement was struck down following technical irregularities.
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The prosecution had argued for a harsher sentence while the defence had said the loss of his son was punishment enough for the businessman.
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The massacre was the worst school shooting in Germany since April 2002, when 19-year-old Robert Steinhaeuser, a disgruntled pupil from Erfurt in eastern Germany who had been expelled, killed 16 people and then himself.

The best solution to our disagreements over gun rights is for all of the people who truly do love guns and truly fear government tyranny to live together with their own kind.
You should check out: iiicitadel.com
A group of second amendment loving patriots are building a literal walled town in the mountains of Idaho where like-minded people can live together in peace, far away from the people who disagree with them, and prepare for disasters. Ownership of a AR-15 (plus ammunition) is mandatory, as is participation in gun training, a local militia (assumedly to man the walls and towers), and maintaining a year's worth of supplies for your family in case of disaster. The citadel's creation is being funded by the "III Arms" gun company.
I am not making any of theis up. I truly hope that this social experiment is successful and that people like LoneWolfEthos can find a home there.

A solution to hatred over America's Second Amendment --would be for all of the people who truly do love Statist Government and truly fear the liberty of our Bill of Rights more than they fear criminals --to live together with their 'own kind'.
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/Psych majors, pay attention.

Why should citizens born under the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution --move anywhere?
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It seems that your "kind" (your words) are the ones dissatisfied. Lead the way to your statist-utopia.
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/History majors, pay attention.

Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted time and time again! Nothing has changed and nothing will change. Only when we have "learned to dispense with our collective hang-ups, break out from traditional ways of thinking, make dramatic changes so as to provide new ideas about the nature of our societies, have sharpness of vicarious insights, ability to identify and understand the thoughts or feelings of others" will we be able to do away with these outrageous acts by desperate individuals. Empathy, not amendments, protects our freedom

i feel gun control is not what we need. We need people who are willing to report metelly ill people. Sure get ride of magizings and guns that can shoot 5 shots a second or 3 shot rounds but when it comes down to it someone can always get there hands on a gun because criminals dont follow laws. We need people who stand gaurd and report anything that seems out of the ordnary we need to help people resolve there problems by not taking anything lightly dont let it side do something about it before they get out of hand.

It seems you're missing the point again. This article is not about 'accidents' but about 'intended mass murder'.
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Different from bearing guns, driving is a privilege in this country which requires tough tests as a precondition. Driving is a strictly regulated activity which is exercised, mostly out of necessity, by at least 150 million Americans for many hours every day.
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All drivers are closely monitored by hundreds of thousands of traffic-police officers and highway-patrolmen. Even the slightest misdemeanor is punished severely. E.g., as a secondary law for adults, it is in fact illegal to ride without being self-secured by a seat belt.
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Notwithstanding the massive utilization of cars in the daily life by most adult Americans, on average only 90 people are killed on the roadways of the U.S. per day. Given the billions of hours this nation spends every day behind the wheel, the overall death toll is rather minimal.
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Yet, what is even more important in this context: No homicides are registered in this country with cars as a murder weapon; or at least this is so insignificant that it doesn't appear among the "Top 10 most common murder weapons" - despite the hundreds of millions of car users on a daily basis.
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Good you brought the issue up, LoneWolfEthos: Make the use of guns a licensed 'privilege' as this is the case with driving in this county. Punish the slightest misdemeanor severely by revoking the gun-bearing privilege, as this is done in the case of driving. Screen applicants for a gun-license via tough tests (as this happens with applicants for driver's licenses). This is the only way to spot mental and emotional deficits early enough, before these people are unleashed on the world.
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. . . And you'll see the number of spree killings in this country, involving firearms, coming down to almost ZERO!

guest-lawosee: "We need people who stand guard and report anything that seems out of the ordnary".
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Who is going to pay for the millions of "watch-dogs" who are supposed, according to your solution scheme, to turn this country in a "Brave-New-World" nightmare?
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Please read also my post above addressed to LoneWolfEthos.

People whose life and work belong to the State --are entirely unaware that driving is a privilege, but the Second Amendment is not.
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You cannot change the Bill of Rights into something akin to a driving privilege, (sometimes statists can be quite funny!)
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/It would be nice to see ignorance of our Republic come down to ZERO.

LoneWolfEthos: "You cannot change the Bill of Rights into something akin to a driving privilege".
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Rather the opposite is true. As early as the 'Articles of Confederation', which even preceded the Constitution, the Congress recognized freedom of movement (Article 4), though the right was thought to be so fundamental during the drafting of the Constitution as not needing explicit enumeration in the Bill of Rights.
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Thus, the right of freedom of movement (which includes the right of riding a horse or - today, driving a car - is so fundamental that the Constitution didn't even see the need to mention this.
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Still, through the requirement to obtain a driver's license the freedom of movement became 'conditional' in this country, hence it is a 'privilege' now.
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There is absolutely no reason why this shouldn't apply to a less fundamental right, such as the right to bear arms.

The Articles of Confederation are not the law of the land. ... The U.S. Constitution is law.
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The Bill of Rights (and its Second Amendment) therefore replaced the weak Articles of Confederation. .... Your very clumsy phrase "less fundamental right" should be astonishing for anyone to read.
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Driving a car is so "fundamental" to you? ... People wondered why the First Amendment had to even be written! "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or abridging speech, or the right of the people to assemble". The Founders argued whether to even include these because it was understood that these God-given rights already existed before the Constitution. Why would Congress tamper with them?
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Thankfully, the Bill of Rights WAS codified.
/History majors, pay attention.

Of course, we all think it's great that the Bill of Rights was laid down in an early stage of the Union. The question raised is about the intention of rights that were laid down more than 200 years ago under completely different circumstances. They were important for the functioning of the young state, but they are not the Ten Commandments. The Founders were humans, not gods. And even the application of the Ten Commandments was, throughout history, a question of ecclesiastical interpretation.
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If “driving a car” is "fundamental", I’m not sure, but I know that the natural right of movement existed prior to the advent of nation states, way before the codification of the Bill of Rights. This right of freedom of movement (which, naturally, includes the right to a personal transport) is so fundamental that the Constitution didn't even see the need to mention this. This is a fact frequently stated by constitutional experts.

It seems that you've swerved into something. .... Your right of 'movement' comes under the larger unalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. These are declared in our Declaration of Independence as rights that are endowed by God, --not government.
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Therefore, every person on the planet has the right to defend themselves from those who would kill them. When felonious criminals have weapons, taking away the right to bear arms is nothing less than eliminating the unalienable right to Life itself.
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/It's hard work guarding our Republic.

The primary use of a gun is to kill, when you get in a vehicle is that your primary intention? No. A very petty response from you. Secondly, why does every gun wielding American seem to forget that the Bill of Rights endorses the right to a 'well regulated militia'. Banning fully automatic assault rifles seems like a legitimate response in the wake of the several disasters that have occurred of late, when, if you were a responsible citizen, you could achieve everything you wanted to with a handgun, assault rifles are unnecessary.

Next time read the entire 2nd Amendment before making clueless comments.

Every man on the planet has the right to defend himself from those who would kill him. When felonious criminals have weapons, taking away the right to bear arms is nothing less than eliminating the right to Life itself.

Of the 450 murders committed during the last reporting period only ONE was committed with a rifle. So much for "assault rifles".

A substantial majority of the killings occurred on the streets of a city with strict gun laws. The shooters were in possession of illegal weapons and they were carrying a concealed weapon, two felonies . In addition studies have shown that a substantial majority of murderers have a prior felony conviction and are therefore not allowed to own or possess guns.

What you come to is that the typical Chicago murderer is guilty of three felonies before he pulls the trigger. One more is not likely to have much of a deterrent effect

Most of the Chicago murders (again according to the City's official Murder Report) involve drugs and or gangs - again more felonies.

What Obama wants you to ignore is that a tiny percentage of the population commits a majority of the murders. What he wants you to do is to disarm innocent citizens while he leaves the thugs on the street and sends Eric Holder to protect the thugs.

To reduce our murder rate we need to change the culture of a relatively small percentage of the population. It's not race but rather the cultural shifts which have occurred over 40 years of liberal dogma.

"The second is a misguided notion that the second amendment is the best and surest constitutional protection against tyranny. As Conor Friedersdorf sagely noted, the Bill of Rights offers much more effective and less costly checks on government power."

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Benjamin Franklin

And, if we did not have the 2nd Amendment Japan most likely would have invaded our mainland unobstructed. If that had happened, where would you be, or would you BE!

"And, if we did not have the 2nd Amendment Japan most likely would have invaded our mainland unobstructed."

Do you honestly believe that the American military would have been unable to obstruct an invasion from Japan? We could have stepped up conscription and pulled soldiers out of the European front to defend the homeland. The vast distance of the Pacific ocean, the magnitude of our land, and our superior numbers would have been enough to fight off a Japanese invasion. To that we could also add the various technological advances we made during WWII (courtesy of government funding) that eventually gave us technological superiority over the Japanese military.

"And, if we did not have the 2nd Amendment Japan most likely would have invaded our mainland unobstructed."

Dude, President Truman's excuse for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that he did not want the troops to invade the Japanese homeland and face an armed population. So the 2nd Amendment doesn't deter an invader who has absolute air power to bomb the cities at will.

There are undoubtedly some people who deserve the crticism directed at them by this kind of argument, but basically this is a straw man argument. The writer should try his hand at more substattive issues applying to most people not what he correctly describes as a fringe group. This was far too easy to be impressive.

The focus on semi-automatic firearms (which for billionth time are not assault rifles) is totally misplaced. As others have noted, 19th century repeaters can be fired nearly as quickly. The record for 6 aimed shots fired from an 1870's style single action revolver is less than 1 second with all rounds in the target. So banning semi-automatics won't do anything to stop these events.

The argument that limiting magazine capacity will help may hold a little more validity, though I personnaly doubt it. What's to stop a person from bringing in 3 or guns? Also, I suspect when people are hiding or diving for cover, no one is going to note that 2 sec pause in firing and decide it's time to make a move against the criminal because he is reloading.

But frankly, I suspect 10 rounds is sufficient for most personal defense, other than the fact that the criminal probably will have more rounds since as a criminal he probably won't worry about magazine capacity restrictions. Nevertheless, I have a problem with these limitations. All one needs to do is look to NY to see why. NY has had a 10 round mag limit for years. Now suddenly that is no longer good enough. Now it is 7. And there is the issue. Once the first mag capacity limit is put in place, every mass shooting will be an excuse to show that the limit is too high and must be reduced.

And then this brings us clearly to Senator Feinsteins new "Assault" weapons ban. Again, it is not such a ban because true assualt weapons can fire in full auto mode. And the possession of full auto weapons has been highly restricted in the US for nearly 80 years (1934 Firearms Act). An to my knowledge no legally owned full auto weapon has been used in a crime in the US. So clearly the senator is not looking to ban assault weapons. She is looking to ban semi-automatic weapons.

So why the marketing term "assualt" weapons for this ban? Because it is just the first step in the process of elimminating any weapon which can fire once for each pull of the trigger. So first go after those weapons that have a military look. Forget the fact that they function no differently nor use ammunition any more powerful than a large number of hunting rifles. This is simply a way to start the process with a limited subset of firearms. Then when the next mass killing happens, there will be the excuse to expand the ban. And this process will continue until we are banning 19th century double action six shooters while claiming that this doesn't violate Heller since you can still defend yourself with the same gun as Wyatt Earp would have used at the OK corral. But then Wyatt never had to deal with a home intruder with a semi-auto pistol or rifle with 15 or more rounds loaded. Again, the same home intruder who won't care that the law says such a gun is illegal.

The final issue which makes Feinstein's bill such an obvious first step at banning possession of these firearms is the requirement for registration. Why is this needed? Criminals will not register their guns. So what benefit does this provide in reducing risk of illegal use of these guns? None. So what is the point? Just to be ready to confiscate them at the earliest opportunity. If you doubt this, just look at Cuomo Jr's initial rehtoric in NY - he wanted immediate confiscation. But when he realized that was not going to fly outside NYC, he backed off to registration without any allowance to sell or pass on the firearm by the current owner. He managed apparently to buy off many upstae Republican senators with this move. I assume many of them were planning for retirement since a good number of those who agreed to this will be finding themselves out of work in come Jan 2015.

It's clear where the anti-self defense side is trying to go with this. One step at a time until the restrictions are so tight that what firearms are still allowed will be of no real use for self defense agains criminals who still possess modern firearms. Then if what is allowed is of no real use, well there's no reason to allow that either.

With all due respect to Gnostic, above, I was WITH you until you got to those last two paragraphs. I can see that you are a reasonable person, so I appeal to you to reconsider that infamous NRA "slippery-slope" boogeyman.

Yes I agree that sometimes slippery-slopes DO exist and we should be wary of them. But not EVERYTHING we do involves a slippery-slope. If that were a valid fear ALWAYS we would still be using stone tools and never get anywhere at all. Please reconsider. Cuomo over-reacted, but there is no way the right to self-defense will EVER go away.

I believe that reasonable people can examine a situation and design reasonable solutions; not perfect solutions but reasonable ones.

As I've said, addressing gun mechanics is an unproductive area to seek much of a solution.

Which leaves us with non-mechanical aspects such as governance.

You asked why Registration would contribute to a solution. If we may put the slippery-slope business aside for a moment, registration does offer a system for ensuring that proper firearms training be required for owning and operating firearms. AS in, No training, no registration: no purchase. That alone would no doubt lower the accidental shooting statistics and be a welcome benefit to all. Such training could also include extensive instructions on how to secure firearms when not in use, another benefit to all.

Many have pointed to the auto registration system as a good model to follow for implementing such a registration system: some tweaking required of course, so lets tweak away.

Registration also offers a foundation for an insurance system to provide the benefits of any other insurance system, and for the same reasons. With more than 300 million firearms out there, the insurance pool is rather large, so the premiums ought to be affordable, and proper liability claims ought be covered just like they are with
every other product. And accidents should have already decreased substantially. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Registration also offers at least a way to control transfer of ownership records and require that new owners meet the same standards as the original owners.

There are several other benefits, as car registration has shown. None of this happens effectively without Registration. And no, gun registration can never be perfect in practice no more than car registration is.

Combined with a more comprehensive background check system as is being discussed, and better administration of same, and then maybe we improve our situation enough to make it all worthwhile.

At the end of the day, gun rights are NOT disturbed, self-protection remains supported, and criminals find it much harder to obtain weapons.

Will criminals still be able to circumvent law and order just as they do now? Of course, and we will counter, as usual; but it will be much more difficult for them, and besides responsible gun owners will STILL be armed, just as they were before.

All these benefits are blocked by the unreasonable fear of a slippery-slope. Before car registration, the mayhem on the public roads was outrageous. After car registration, no one came to take away all our cars.

OK, so I'll be reasonable. I agree that requiring gun safety training is a good thing. When I applied for a pistol permit in NY in the late 1970's. the process was onerous even then, and clearly rigged to obstruct ownership. But the one thing I felt they got right was safety course which also covered NY state laws relative to when you can and cannot use deadly force.

That said, you don't need registration to achieve mandatory safety training. Simply require the prospective buyer to produce a valid certificate indicating he or she has completed the necessary training.

You also do not need registration to handle firearm transfers. Simply require that all firearms be transferred through licensed dealers. That will ensure the background checks are done and ensure required training was completed if that becomes a requirement.

To be honest, I am not sure where you are head with the insurance angle either. I assume it is not to ensure the firearms against theft since that can already be covered through homeowners insurance with appropriate riders. Are you implying then all gun owners would be required to carry liability insurance for their firearms? If so, this sounds to me like one more obstacle just looking to increase cost of ownership with minimum appreciable benefit.

And I am sorry, but your comment about registering cars did not lead to the gov't then confiscating them is completely unrelated to the issue with guns. Car registration was put into place for the simple reason that even the most law abiding citizen was likely breaking driving laws - running stop signs and lights, speeding, etc. to the extent that even today more than 30,000 people are killed every year in car accidents (half of which are alcohol related but no one is out to ban alcohol - again). The issue here though is that these are accidents. Very rarely is someone intentionally trying to kill someone with their car, either criminally or in self defense. So registering the cars of generally law abiding citizens supports police efforts to identify the owners of cars which are breaking laws and which may get away (the use of cameras at intersections being a prime example) by viewing license plates, to track stolen cars which may have plates swapped, to collect taxes for the privilege of using roads which need to be maintained, and to ensure they are inspected since many things can wear out and become safety issues.

What part or this applies to the registration of guns? Are you going to put highly visible registration plates on them so that if they are used in a crime Joe citizen can call in the plate? Even if you did the criminal would not have a problem with that as they will just take the plates off. Are you going to require them to be inspected for save operation every year when the fact is guns will function for the lifetime of most owners without ever needing a repair? Do you want to collect an annual tax on them to support maintenance of the atmosphere through which the bullets travel? Perhaps if you catch a criminal with a gun registered to someone else you can book him for one more offense and return the gun to the owner, but even this action does not prevent the gun from being used illegally. Thus gun registration is not at all comparable to auto registration.

Bottom line, registration serves no purpose. And even if it did, why just register so called assault rifles? If it's good it is good for all guns. But the Feinstein gang know they cannot get all guns registered. Millions of hunters would be, sorry for the pun, up in arms over this. So they are willing for now to simply set the precedence with a subset hoping it won't get enough resistance. But frankly their own stupidity gets in the way since they really don't have a clue that the types of guns they wish to ban are, today, some of the most common used in competition and recreational target shooting. And, to be frank, these so called assault rifles are some of the best varmint hunting guns ever made - light, accurate to hundreds of yards (I have no trouble hitting an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper at 300 yards with my 35 year old AR15 with its original iron sites), and their modern materials are extremely tolerant of the abuse that often accompanies hunting.

So why pass a measure that ultimately won't achieve any of the objectives claimed by its supporters? There are only two reasons, the supporters are stupid or they have an ulterior motive.

I think based on your assessment of the opening paragraphs of my first post that I am not opposed to reasonable extensions of existing gun laws - background checks for everyone, all sales through dealers, and I'd support your desire for safety training. But unlike cars, registration of guns serves no purpose unless ultimately that purpose is confiscation.

Good post Simon. I see that despite the fact that I have already agreed to many of the things you complain about, you remain firmly planted on the "slippery-slope."

Which tells me that I do not understand why YOU are SO firmly affixed, slope-wise. I have of course heard the explanations of others on this point, but not so much: yours personally. Confiscation is not on the table, Cuomo notwithstanding, and never has been, yet this fear seems to be so deeply held by so many. We have the strongest legal safeguards imaginable already in place to prevent confiscation, and yet still, all this fear. Why so, in your case?

What legal protections do you feel we have in place? The only "protection" I see in the Contstitution would be the 5th Amendment - "nor shall any person ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law". Due process would be provided by a subsequent law banning possession of these firearms. But enforcement of such a law would be virtually impossible without knowing who actually has them - thus registration is a prerequisite.

Clearly though, the left side of the aisle knows full well that they will never get a law passed which goes straight to confiscation today. But the fact is they probably could have achieved this given the makeup of the House and Senate in 2009. However, even then with that opportunity, without a list of who has these firearms, confiscation would not be totally successful as a large number of owners would simply put the guns into hiding. So the better option for today is stating that you "just" want registration - so be a good citizen and do this and we will let you keep your gun (to bad for your kids and grandkids, but who ever said that the Constitution promised protection of the rights recognized would be eternal). And of course do this only with a subset of gun owners to minimize resistance to this. Again, they know full well if they asked for registration of all guns, many of them would be out of work in 2015.

But lets assume you are right, they really don't intend this as a step toward eventual confiscation. Then I come back to my original post - there was not a single so called "benefit" of registration which could not be achieved through the existing mechanism of background checks including some appropriate safety training requirement. So why add more bureaucracy and associated cost to the system when there is no benefit. At best this is a waste of resources. At worst it is exactly what I said, step 1 to confiscation of all but the most worthless firearms for self defense.

Ratherdrive, just a PS to the previous - if I was a blind slippery-sloper, I would be against most every proposed law. For example, I wouldn't want any limitation on mag size. But in fact I'm OK with a reasonable limit of 10. That leaves me with enough to reasonably defend against an intruder. I'm willing to go with this even though as I noted in an earlier post, I don't suspect it will save a single life for the reasons I stated earlier.

I'm also in favor of, note, not willing to accept but fully in favor of, requiring gun safety training as a condition of owning firearms. That places a new burden on gun owners, but it serves a valid purpose.

But I am opposed to registration because it serves no purpose relative to safety. And even those proposing it know this. Thus they must have another reason for wanting it - it simply fulfills a prerequisite for confiscation.

Ratherdrive, just a PS to the previous - if I was a blind slippery-sloper, I would be against most every proposed law. For example, I wouldn't want any limitation on mag size. But in fact I'm OK with a reasonable limit of 10. That leaves me with enough to reasonably defend against an intruder. I'm willing to go with this even though as I noted in an earlier post, I don't suspect it will save a single life for the reasons I stated earlier.

I'm also in favor of, note, not willing to accept but fully in favor of, requiring gun safety training as a condition of owning firearms. That places a new burden on gun owners, but it serves a valid purpose.

But I am opposed to registration because it serves no purpose relative to safety. And even those proposing it know this. Thus they must have another reason for wanting it - it simply fulfills a prerequisite for confiscation.

Simon: Excellent that you are fine with magazine size limitation. As I've said before, that is probably the only mechanical/technical thing that can be done to offer an improvement to our national situation, however slight it may be.

Same also mandatory gun safety training as a condition of ownership, which should generate some improvement.

Good to see that you have at least one foot off that "slope." But tell me this: is there absolutely nothing that can be done to mitigate your concern about confiscation? If our Constitution will not relieve your fear, I'm at a loss as what might do the trick. The "Due Process" clause you mentioned in particular is so crucial in allowing us all to find a way to live together in relative peace and quiet. Do you know of something that would provide relief to you, that you could share? If we could develop such a thing, and implement it, I'm guessing that most if not all of your objections would dissolve? If we cannot, even discussion of other areas of possible improvement are totally blocked. Not a useful outcome.

I, for one, have no problem at all with maintaining a firearm in the home for self-protection and would not want to see self-defense by firearm be made illegal. Furthermore I feel extremely confident that a very large majority of our countrymen would never approve of making self-defense illegal, not ever. Not to mention there are certain areas of the Country, not all areas, where self-defense via firearm is effectively mandatory.

By the way, there are several popular motives for owning firearms, but self-defense is the one that happens to be yours, correct?

Defense of home and hearth against the criminal element, and perhaps a little target shooting, seems to be your motive for gun ownership. Therefore one would surmise that you would be in favor of constructing an environment where law-abiding responsible citizens could choose to be armed if they thought it prudent, while at the same time making it as difficult as possible for "criminals and crazies" to obtain weapons and ammo. As compared and contrasted to what we have now: an almost biblical flood of weapons, everywhere. Am I correct that this sounds like "Nirvana" to you"? It sure sounds good to me.
At this point in our national debate we have an opportunity to suggest some creative ideas on what would get us there, rather than throw up as many barriers as possible to prevent the trip altogether; a trip you would personally benefit from, since upon successful arrival you would have the bad guys outgunned.
So, how would YOU get us there (and we are certainly not even in sight of that goal at the moment)? What are the most effective measures YOU can think of to impede the distribution of guns from (and even separate guns from) our undesireable element, while not unduly disturbing responsible citizen gun-owners?

There has to be a way. An effective way. Can't be as difficult as dealing with Lith-Ion batteries in 787s, right? :-)

Great comments - I would only add that when the LAPD was looking for Christian Dorner (former policeman who killed a number of police) officers in the field "mistook" 2 elderly, frail ladies delivering newspapers for a single NFL sized man and opened fire on the ladies truck. Approximately 60 rounds were fired by trained police, yet both women survived although one as wounded. Against that backdrop, a 20 round magazine in the hands of a citizen who may face 5 armed home invasion dirtbags does not seem to be over armed.

The other brutal truth that's not shared with the public is that unlicensed drivers ( mostly illegals) kill far more than the occasional "mass murderer" , yet the unlicensed drivers are protected by the liberals.

Nirvana: Gun-worshipping was not the intent of the post. The idea was to recognize where we are, analyze what the mechanical realities are and suggest what can practically be done to improve our national situation.

Mechanically its not that much that can be done, as I've said, but limiting magazine size is at least something.

The point is that addressing gun mechanics is not very helpful in developing a solution or even a substantial improvement. if any measurable improvement is to be found, it will have to be developed from some other aspect of the situation, and that is where our attention should be focused.

If we are considering what can actually be done to reduce the number of mass-murders by gun (as opposed to all types of gun violence), the rate-of-fire practically available to the shooter is the salient characteristic of the event. Obviously the more time it takes to deliver fire, the higher the possibility, at least a possibility, of some form of intervention. And the faster the fire-delivered, the more fatalities.

Modern semi-automatic weapons fire one shot per trigger-pull, and the time it takes to complete a trigger-pull is only a barely measurable limiting factor. In fact, 100-year-old repeating firearms are really not that much slower, so banning semi-automatics is of no benefit.

The only thing that buys us any measurable time in a mass-shooting event is reloading, meaning that the size of the magazine dictates the number of pauses in the firing activity.

The smaller the magazine the better, since reloadng introduces opportunities for handling errors and/or malfunctions during which interventions may be attempted. This is only a very slim window of opportunity, but it is a great deal better than what we have now, which is no window at all.

There are more than 300 million existing guns to consider, most of them semi-automatic. The only mechanical way there is, to restrict the rate-of-fire-delivered of these weapons is by limiting the size of magazines.

If the word "assault" is used to describe a civilian weapon, it refers only to appearance, nothing more substantial than that. Of course appearance may indeed fuel the tragic fantasies of the unbalanced and is a valid characteristic to be debated for that reason.

Having some type of gun in the home for defense may be dangerous, but its not unreasonable. on the other hand, preparing to defend against a force comparable to Seal Team Six by keeping enormous magazines under the bed is patently ridiculous. You would have no chance anyway.

The societal cost of magazines carrying 30 rounds or more, far outweighs the likelihood of being attacked by an army.

U.S. Fed insubordination to give BS attitude about gun control and cover-up it failed to continue law enforcement and was cause of the 26 deaths at the school. New gun laws? We own millions and millions of what would be banned. Talk of gun is BS that stops nothing.

Empty talk is right!
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I'm reminded of Barry Obama's 23 "executive orders" that are all Barbara Streisand (BS). None would have prevented the shooting at Sandy Hook, but they sure make government functionaries feel good about themselves.
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Young adults are drugged-up and pumped-up on violent videos, and the government wants to subject lawful citizens to strict gun control, --but no social control on them.
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/Psych majors, pay attention

If the legal gun owner of the guns used in the shooting at Sandy Hook would have faced stiff punishment by law for not securing her guns properly, instead of giving her deranged son free access to them, then she would have thought twice before letting him have the weapons. She could still live, so could the 20 murdered children.
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But as the situation is, the NRA is lobbying against any attempt to compel legal gun owners to a strict safe-keeping of their guns.

Adam Lanza's mother did indeed face 'stiff punishment by the law' for not securing her firearms, --the law of the jungle.
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Your talismanic faith in government is unfounded. So is society's faith in psychotropic meds...it remains to be seen if adam lanza will join this hall of shame.http://ssristories.com/index.php
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/Psych majors, pay attention.

Sad that the "punishment" for Nancy Lanza came in this way and too late to save the lives of 20 innocent children.
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I have no "talismanic faith" in any government; I merely can't see how even a state-of-the-art Glock pistol or an AR-15 can be sufficient enough of a weapon against a tyrannical regime equipped with advanced combat helicopters, with multirole F-35 fighter planes, and with K2 battle tanks (let alone battle drones, cruise missiles and mini-nuke-launchers).
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He who tries to make us believe this is either naive or a charlatan.

You can envision the full force of the United States military being launched against its civilian populace? ...
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But why are you confusing a mental health issue with a gun issue?
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Nevertheless, every person on the planet has the right to defend themselves from those who would oppress them, or kill them. When felonious (and often drugged-up) criminals have weapons, taking away the right to bear arms is nothing less than eliminating the right to self-defense; i.e., Life itself.
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/The Second Amendment is an amendment for all mankind.

LoneWolfEthos: "You can envision the full force of the United States military being launched against its civilian populace?"

No, I can't. But it's you guys who try to justify the need to own rapid-fire-guns (in combination with high capacity clips) with the argument of a possible coup d'état by a ruthless tyrant. If this is really what you fear, then I don't understand your astonishment about the fact that such regime would, of course, act according to its attributed nature, namely 'tyrannical'.

LoneWolfEthos: "The Second Amendment is an amendment for all mankind".

- If it were, then it's still not free for each individual's interpretation.

The Second Amendment states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right - an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. As president Washington's suppression of the Whiskey rebellion (with the help of a 'well regulated militia') proves, the Second Amendment was not intended to be used against the elected government, but rather to support the government.

You should study current events more often.
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You reminded me of a big Court case back at the tail end of President GWB's administration when the Supremes reaffirmed individual people's inherent right to keep and bear arms. ... Do you remember?
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In the D.C. case the Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right and that the D.C. government, as much as they tried, could not ban handguns, and, that guns may be maintained in the homes of D.C. residents.
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The Second Amendment is an amendment for all men because taking away the right to bear arms is eliminating the right to Life itself.

In a 2008 Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, the court voted 5 to 4 in favor of Heller; close enough, IMO, to challenge any insistence that this is the only possible interpretation of the Second Amendment.
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Furthermore, the proponents of unrestricted gun possession had good luck on their side in 2008: Two Supreme Court Judges were nominated under pro-gun-lobby-president, George W. Bush.
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On September 5, 2005, two days after the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, President Bush nominated Roberts as a Chief Justice of the United States; and only one year later, on October 31, 2006, he nominated another of ‘his men’, Samuel Alito, to replace Sandra O'Connor upon her retirement.
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This time, in the case that a renewed ban on assault weapons would be challenged by the NRA again, the deck is reshuffled. Two new Associate Justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, were nominated by the current President. This is why I wouldn't react prematurely with glee over the DC-vs.-Heller-decision, if I were you.
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Exactly because of its potential political exploitation, it is, IMO, not appropriate to call the Supreme Court to witness for the validity of a supposedly god-given right.
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A democratic political system is basically defined as one in which public policies are made by representatives subject to effective popular control via periodic elections which are conducted on the principle of political equality (and, of course, under the condition of political freedom).
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By this definition, if it is not simply antidemocratic, the Supreme Court is the least democratic of the three branches of the American government. Its members are appointed rather than elected, and they're removable only by an exceedingly intricate and extra-majoritarian process of impeachment.
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To top this, despite that they are mere mortal humans, Supreme Court Judges are also absolutely protected against any diminution of compensation, even in the case of a self-inflicted dismissal.
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On that note . . .

You are quite right in stating that a Supreme Court decision can be challenged! ... But the only thing that gives me "glee" (as you say) is that the Supremes in the Heller case you cite upheld the heritage of our Founder's original intent.
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But it makes no difference to me whether a Supreme Court judge is liberal or conservative, history has proved that each can rule the opposite way!
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And what most Americans don't understand (because they are a product of failing government schools) is that the ultimate authority for defending liberty resides in the people alone. We The People are the final barrier against tyranny. Therefore, We The People decide what is law; you can plainly see this everyday in court trials all across the nation (that are reenacted on T.V.)
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Along those lines the Supreme Court does not make law (as most seem to think) they only interpret law. You seem to be one of those students of the 'Living' (silly putty) Constitution where judicial activists get to legislate from the bench based on their personal interpretations of the Constitution. In any case, the Supremes cannot enforce anything.
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/Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are rights endowed by our Creator, not government.

In the history of mankind hardly any 'value' was abused to such an extent as the term "liberty".
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This abuse was most of the time not even intended, it took place rather because everyone's perception of what 'liberty' is, is bound to be subjective.
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This is a conflict reflected already in the mortifying question of the English moralist Dr. Samuel Johnson during the early days of the American Constitution: "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the slave drivers of negroes?"
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Or, as a more modern example: The interpretation of liberty of those, who insist that 'liberty' is their right to own high-capacity assault weapons combined with the "right" to keep them unsecured in any place of their liking, is conflicting with the "right to life" of others (e.g. the now-dead children of Newtown).
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This pseudo-conflict exists despite the universal understanding that a human being has the essential right not to be killed by another human being, determining that the right to live is the most essential right of all.
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How can this, in a civilized country, conflict with the far less essential right to leave deadly weapons unsecured lying around, accessible to almost everybody, even to children (as in the most recently reported spree killing in New Mexico)?
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The truly civilized world can not understand such hypocrisy!

Wow your misguided confidence is impressive. We live in what folks would call a common law system.

"Common law systems place great weight on court decisions, which are considered "law" with the same force of law as statutes—for nearly a millennium, common law courts have had the authority to make law where no legislative statute exists, and statutes mean what courts interpret them to mean." - Something you would have read if you did your research.

That my friend is all you need to know when it comes to interpreting the second amendment. If the supreme court comes to an unprecedented interpretation it is still the law of the land. If you are looking for a Legal system that treats a constitution as some sort of self-evident commandments from God then you should probably study Sharia Law. That system works great for those interested in enforcing "Natural" Rights given from God.

Were this so-called 'moralist' Sammy Johnson lucky enough to be alive today, he would scarcely believe what role the government has assumed in quashing American liberties. Today, we Americans cannot live without government interference in all areas of our lives.
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The government controls which light bulbs we can purchase (the government demands to have the right to put toxic mercury into your bedroom, in your kitchen, in your bathroom, in your baby’s nursery), controls our shower heads, controls our sprinkler systems, controls the kind of milk we can drink, controls the press, so-called "journalists" that own and deliver news are simply part of the Government/Media complex), enforces endangered species laws against private property owners, government regs even set the price of coffee that we drink in the morning. The list is endless.
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Thousands of onerous federal regs control every area of American lives. The tyranny of government agencies is completely outside of your area of knowledge.
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Your erroneous perception of liberty is Government, --the hypocrisy comes from you.
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/History majors, pay attention.

236 years ago, when Samuel Johnson heralded these words about the subjectivity of 'liberty', North America was a vast, almost empty territory where mighty buffalo thundered across the land, carving the paths in the wilderness that guided America's European ancestors.
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These paths were later marked with the footprints of adventurers, explorers, pioneers and finally settlers, as they made, unstoppable, their journey to America's West.
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Transcontinental railway lines followed before civilization completed its huge 'power grab' with a fine-meshed network of highways and communication facilities to connect more than 300 million people.
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There are food- and drug companies operating countrywide that could poison the nation in a blink of an eye . . . if not regulated and supervised.
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In case you haven't noticed: The year is 2013 . . . not 1776!
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Unfortunately, regulations come about due to the subversiveness and malpractice of a few, as gun-abuse is a vivid example.

I believe that Sam Johnson would find today's tyranny of U.S. regulatory agencies entirely immoral. Imagine the Government demanding what kind of candles he could burn in his home, or what kind of toilet he could have in his outhouse.
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Sam Johnson would find many of these agencies today totally bypass the U.S. Congress, --and write and create their own rules, to be constitutionally illegal, and therefore immoral.
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/Today, Sam Johnson would find our Tenth Amendment utterly meaningless.

LoneWolfEthos: "Imagine the Government demanding what kind of candles he could burn in his home, or what kind of toilet he could have in his outhouse . . .".
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Imagine a devastating earthquake begins to shake your city in the morning hours when everybody is still asleep, as happened on the 18th of April 1906, in San Francisco.
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Back then, without appropriate building regulations, thousands of structures collapsed as a result of the quake itself. However, the greatest devastation resulted from the fires that followed the quake. The initial tremors destroyed the insufficiently planned and constructed water mains, leaving overwhelmed firefighters with no means of combating the growing inferno. The blaze burned for four days and engulfed the vast majority of the city. By the time Mother Nature intervened with a heavy rainstorm, the once proud city of San Francisco was in shambles. More than 28,000 buildings burned to the ground and the city suffered more than $500 million in damages, a huge amount in today’s dollars. Much of the damage was not covered by insurance.
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The human toll was equally disastrous: authorities estimated that the quake and fires killed 700 people, and left a quarter of a million people homeless. This led to the city’s outcry in anger and rage about the lack of planning and the absence of building regulations which could be heard loud and clear ‘cross the continent, as far away as Washington D.C. and New York City . . . and echoed back to Chicago, Dallas and all the other big cities in the nation.
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The Great San Francisco fire brought about the biggest surge in building regulations the nation had ever seen. Since the grander of citywide reconstruction schemes required investment of monetary sources from the whole nation, the promulgation of the tough new building codes, sensitive evaluations and actions nationwide were the spin-off from the earthquake and the subsequent fire.
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Jack London, who was born into abject poverty in the slums of San Francisco and who celebrated in all his works ‘free men facing the wild’, as he did throughout his life, noted, after the fire that had burned down his hometown, "The surrender of the city was complete . . . The factories and warehouses, the great stores and newspaper buildings, the hotels and the palaces of the nabobs, are all gone, due to the absence of adequate fire safety regulations. Remains only the fringe of dwelling houses on the outskirts of what was once San Francisco . . . On day four of the fire, the Government has the situation finally in hand, and, thanks to the immediate well organized relief given by the whole United States, there is no famine”.
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And this free-spirited man concluded: “However, planners and engineers have already set about making preparations to rebuild San Francisco – better regulated, greater and safer than ever.
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Thus, it’s not (only) the freedom-hating bureaucrat who hankers for ever more regulations and restrictions, far more often it is the dreadful, shocking events, such as the San Francisco fire of April 1906 or the Newtown massacre of December 2012, that trigger a flood of new norms, laws and regulations.
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Btw, living in rural Midwest USA, I burn homemade candles if I like . . . and “pee off my porch”, if the coyotes and ‘coons don’t complain.

I don't know what that has to do with Government demanding to have the right to put the hazardous waste of toxic mercury into our bedrooms, in our kitchens, in our bathrooms, in our baby’s nurseries with dangerous CFL light bulbs, --among all its other extra-Constitutional usurpations.
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/You need to file an environmental impact report with the EPA before you pee of your porch again.

The energy saving act you're referring to does not outlaw the older incandescent bulbs, nor does it dictate that consumers must use the newer spiral-shaped, CFL-containing fluorescent lights that have become increasingly popular by consumers in recent years (way before the new law was enacted).
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The energy saving act rather sets standards for the amount of light emitted per watt of power used for light bulbs sold in the US. Current 100-watt bulbs must become 25 percent more efficient, that's all.
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The law doesn't specify what kind of light sources must be used in a given private household. You’re free to use tilly lamps or candles if you wish . . . or even to glass-blow your own homemade incandescent lamps. (Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utY6imwDHoA for details). Also nothing hindered you to stash away a pile of traditional incandescents before the law hit the store shelves.
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Furthermore, makers are rapidly designing new bulbs. Several companies in the United States are working on light-emitting diode, or LED, bulbs, and on energy-efficient halogen incandescent bulbs, which use a halogen element enclosed in a traditional glass bulb instead of mercury-containing CFL. So, just hold out if you're too clumsy to make your own sources of light.
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BTW, as a true free-spirited libertarian who wants to be unconstrained by government regulations and market despotism, you should look into the ‘survival concept’ of the American Amish communities.
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Most Amish groups here avoid using electricity from public utility lines all together. Instead they increasingly use electricity from batteries fed by solar energy. In general, their sources and supplies are more local, controllable, and independent from the outside world.

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For example, in some settlements here, Amish use solar-fed batteries to power lights on horse buggies, calculators, fans, flashlights, cash registers, copy machines, and typewriters. Solar energy is sometimes used to charge batteries, operate electric fences, and power household appliances.
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And the Amish communities could only mildly smile about the worries of some pseudo-libertarian Don Quixotes in this country, who try to fight windmills that they imagine to be giants. Any law, regulating what kind of toilets are sold in American home improvement stores, they would simply “flush down” their self-made organic toilets. LOL!

They are phasing out incandescent bulbs where I live. The government's energy saving act infringes (as is typical of government policies) of the preference many have for the incandescent bulbs, (you remind everyone here that some people are quite happy with government advising them on how to live their lives).
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The mercury CFLs became popular by consumers, that is until it was discovered that they are dangerous to human life. .... Therefore, why should Americans "stash away a pile of traditional incandescents"?
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You're making my point regarding the tyranny of government (and don't even realize it).
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If manufacturers are "rapidly designing new bulbs" then the free market will decide consumer preference.
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Here, too, you're making my point regarding the tyranny of government busybodies (and don't even realize it).
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I'm not a libertarian.
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/However, it's plain to see that you have a government totem in your life that you hold quite sacred. LOL!

The role of a good government is to see the 'whole picture'. Fact is that our country has been running consistent trade deficits since 1980, mainly due to high imports of oil and other energy commodities.
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In the last reported full year, 2011, the nation's trade deficit reached a staggering USD785 billion. This huge trade deficit, caused for the most part by imports of crude oil and other energy commodities, requires a reduction in energy consumption on federal level.
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This necessity was the real reason behind the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. To balance the nation's trade and to secure future energy supply is one of the Federal Government's essential sovereign functions. The decision over the nation's finances, energy imports and (sustainable) energy security cannot be left to state legislation alone - nor to county governments or municipalities, even less so to private consumption preferences.
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The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 did NOT dictate that only CFLs must be used. It merely set the standards for a light bulb's energy consumption (in Watt). This goal can be achieved in many ways. It was rather the industry which jumped on CFL bulbs as 'the only solution'.
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Meanwhile energy-efficient LED light-bulbs are available in all states . . . and they are guaranteed mercury-free.
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E.g. where I live, Home Depot has LED light-bulbs of all sizes and shapes in stock, so does Lowe's (http://www.lowes.com/Lighting-Ceiling-Fans/Light-Bulbs/LED-Light-Bulbs/_...).
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Many full size WalMarts have them too: (http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?_refineresult=true&_refineres...)
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If you can't buy LED light bulbs where you live, here is an ebay link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/251042080088?hlp=false&var=

Foreign energy dependence by the U.S. proves bad government; very bad government. ... The Government should remove the shackles off domestic oil production, let the market build new refineries, let the market expand the use of nuclear and every conceivable form of energy.
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If we waited for the free market to provide the answer, we would have avoided the disastrous diversion to mercury light bulbs and waited for LEDs to be practical.
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The same with solar; great things are on the horizon, but bad government is always impatient, --Solyndra is the result. ... When the product fits the market, it will happen.
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/Econ majors, pay attention.

A 2011 study in the Journal of Trauma compared the United States with similar nations and found that U.S. homicide rates were overall 6.9 times higher than rates in the other advanced countries. This figure suggests, in general, that the American society, as a whole, is mentally more unstable than other, similar societies. The (legal) drug-involvement chart provided by you would support this assumption.
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But what is even more stunning is the fact that homicide rates driven by the use of firearms were 19.5 times higher in the US than in other high-income countries. This reflects a too-easy access to firearms, especially to high capacity weapons.
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And when we look at the figures for 15-year olds to 24-year olds involved in mass shootings, then we detect that firearm homicide rates in the United States were even 42.7 times (!!) higher than in the other comparable countries and that all more recent rampages, involving young males, were executed with semi-automatic weapons. This is - at least - a clear indication that high capacity firearms are too easily accessible here in the US, in particular to this ‘compromised’ age group.
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Stats and data were taken from: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/criminal-justice/effec...

People engaged in criminal activity are not deterred by laws that restrict gun ownership. Statistics comparing homicides from mass shootings in the US to those in other countries are not meaningful, due to the relatively few incidents in the database. One incident in Norway in which nearly 80 people died has a higher body count than multiple incidents in the US. What does that mean? Finally, you confuse semi automatic weapons with high capacity magazines. Virtually all hand guns, the most common ones in use in the US and the most common type used in crimes, are semi automatic. The data does not support that high capacity magazines played any role in these crimes, since bullet count is not measured.

It’s not the usual criminal who commits these acts of spree killing. Strangely enough the ‘typical’ American spree killer is the “white boy next door”, who had usually never been in trouble with the law before. This is why we also need to explore the question why so many recent mass killings were committed by young white men without previous criminal convictions.
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CNN panelist David Sirota even suggests that we should ‘racially profile’ young, white, middle class guys with ‘abnormal’ gun obsession. Correctly he stated that “had the shooters been ‘Arabs’ or ‘African-American men’, we’d be having a ‘very different conversation’ in this country”.
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And no, there are not too few incidents in the database of the research report. The mentioned comparative research studies used data on large scale from different countries. For more on the relationship between firearm ownership and mass shooting rates, see the review in Journal of American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, March 2010.
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The authors of this extensive study labeled the ‘typical’ contemporary spree killer with the term “Pseudocommando”, a white male, between 15-year to 24-year old, without previous criminal convictions, often admiring tightly regimented political movements. This is also why all recent shooters would have slipped under the radar of a criminal background check.
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Abstract of the above mentioned review: “The ‘Pseudocommando’ is a type of mass murderer who kills in public during the daytime, plans his offense well in advance, and comes prepared with a powerful arsenal of weapons. He has no escape planned and expects to be killed during the incident. Research suggests that the ‘Pseudocommando’ is driven by strong feelings of anger and resentment, flowing from paranoid beliefs about being persecuted or grossly mistreated by a 'totalitarian authority'. A Pseudocommando views himself as carrying out a highly personal agenda of payback” (End quote).
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Reading a great number of blogs about this issue, I came to realize that this is exactly the psychological profile many gun-proponents here on these threads are showing as well; if only rudimentarily in the majority of cases, it's still frighteningly enough.
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Often we can read statements which obviously spring from paranoid beliefs about the imminent danger of persecution by a totalitarian regime; these freaks claim that “combat-style weaponry is needed to protect the nation from dictatorship", or they insist “we need weapons equal to the government to defend ourselves from tyranny” . . . only to claim in the next sentence that these rapid-shot weapons are ‘common guns’ of the 'most common type'.

However, the real threat in the fantasy-world of this type of gun-owners which has spun inside their heads isn't an imaginary fascist regime (even though these folks can't talk about guns for 30 seconds without bringing up Hitler), it’s rather a democratically elected United States government which might turn out not to be to their personal liking, which becomes their Boogeyman. Not seldom these 'doomsday preppers' are angry tea partiers, who are talking about "watering the 'tree of liberty' with the blood of tyrants" . . . only to condemn any truly liberal world view in the next sentence.
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Thus, here the question is justified: Are many of those gun-control opponents mentally already close to those paranoid freaks who fit into the ‘Pseudocommando-profile’ outlined by the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and who represent a significant number of the spree killers?

Is there a conclusion here that the more laws that get passed restricting or banning certain guns the more paranoid pseudocommandos will be pushed over the edge and go on a rampage? .... leading to more demands for more restrictions on guns, leading to ....

Over the past ten years we've seen a decrease in gun laws. The lapsing of the assault rifle ban, the spread of concealed carry and "stand your ground" laws, and "firearm freedom acts" in Montana and Arizona that eliminate almost all restrictions. We've also seen a rise in mass shootings. There is certainly no evidence of a vicious circle.

So, what is your conclusion, Duckdawdger? - NO gun restriction at all? Would this produce a lesser chance that paranoid or deranged individuals get hold of them?
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I guess the ideology behind your argument can easily be debunked:
In 2007, San Francisco passed a law prohibiting handguns in a home from being left out in the open. Owners had to lock the gun away in a container/safe or disable them with a trigger-lock. Naturally, San Francisco was then fighting the National Rifle Association (NRA) to keep the law on the books.
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The NRA claims that the law violates a constitutional right “to possess an operable handgun ready for immediate use and loaded with proper ammunition for self defense,” which it claims is a “civil right” under the Second Amendment, in spite of the fact that such assertion can nowhere be detected in the Founding Fathers' interpretations and intentions of the Second Amendment.
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This very reasonable law is fought by the NRA despite that San Francisco’s lawmakers had unanimously approved the legislation and that the SF Board of Supervisors had added facts, including studies and statistics, which prove that an overly-easy illegal use of ‘legal guns’ by potential spree killers (James of Houston's reasoning here) will be rendered almost impossible through such law.
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As a positive side-effect, among other things, also suicides and accidental shootings are less likely to happen when there are only always-secured guns in peoples’ homes.
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It looks, Duckdawdger, as if you are shooting yourself in the foot with that line of argument.

The vicious circle I am referring is the spiralling down of increasing gun violence being caused by borderline schizoid gun owners who are paranoid about any gun safety legislation being perceived as the actions of a tyrannical government thus causing more outcries for gun safety legislation leading to more pseudocommandos going over the edge.
This paranoia is being stoked not only by the NRA and right wing media but by GOP politicians like the testudinidial (look it up) Mitch McConnell "We're surrounded by gun grabbers" at a time right after an unthinkable horror where any rational person would think that gun safety legislation would have the greatest chance of being acceptable.http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/21/mitch-mcconnell-campaign-were-surrounded-...
From a social psychological perspective, it seems to me that this is solely an American phenomenom because no other country has the guaranteed right to bear arms coupled with the suspicion of government tyranny. That Mitch McConnell, one of the most powerful men in Washington, can get away with being so brash and dishonest about gun safety and so rabble rousing to the gun owning lunatics in America only 1 month after Newtown suggests strongly that government efforts to enforce weapons bans will only lead to more gun violence. To someone who is not a US citizen, this seems like an intractable problem that could lead to a breakdown in their society if taken to its "us versus them" extreme. In no other advanced first world country does the citizenry believe it has a right to take up arms against the actions of a legitimately constituted government. Therefore, my question remains, how does America deal with this horrendous vicious circle?

Your most recent post clarifies a lot. However, I fail to see a valid connection between stricter gun laws and an increase in spree killings. All developed countries, which have - without exception - much tighter gun laws, have also significantly lower shooting spree rates than the US. But your assumption might be correct that the NRA is feeding of an artificially created hysteria.

Well, it was your pschological profiling of pseudocommandos coupled with the current level of paranoid rants that suggests the conclusion that enacting gun safety laws could lead to an increase in lunatic fringe gun violence. See James Yeager, CEO, Tactical Response YouTube

No other country has the number of guns and the addiction to loving their guns (as it seems now, some even more than their children) and the endless stream of denials that they have a gun problem than does the United States. It is a Catch-22, do nothing and you have more and more assault weapons in circulation waiting for lunatics to use. Ban them, and you have the James Yeagers ready to shoot someone because they have a paranoid delusional fantasy that the government is illegally restricting their liberty and they have a constitutional right to take up and use arms to prevent that from happening.

Maybe that's why certain sherriffs will not enforce certain gun safety legislation, because they're afraid of being killed when they try to take someone's assault rifle or mega round magazine.

The sad truth is that if blacks and hispanics committed murder at the same rate that whites do murders would drop by far more than 60% . It's not a gun problem, it is a cultural problem teen mothers, gangs, rap music that glorifies gangsters and abuse of women, gangs, videos , violent video games.( see Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill)

It went almost unnoticed: One week ago, on Saturday, a boy shot his parents and three children with a semi-automatic gun at their home in a rural area southwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The 5 victims were found dead next day, Jan 20, 2013. The 'gun-man' was identified as 15 year-old Nehemiah Griego. The teenager was arrested on murder charges. It's almost characteristic of these recent shooting-sprees here in the US that the culprits have never been in trouble with the law before. That's what's so creepy about it.
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I do not want to burden fellow Americans with collective guilt. However, it is tempting to say that these shootings — including the one before at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut - reflect something basically wrong with America’s gun culture.
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The long list of killings is due in large measure to the political influence of a loud minority . . . and the campaign finance system that allows the gun lobby to exercise so much power. This has nothing to do with 'personal rights' and constitutional democracy anymore.
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The majority of Americans seem to favor stricter gun control laws now. One can only hope that an outraged and mobilized public can beat the NRA's clout and pressure Congress to put strong limits on sales of semi-automatic assault weapons and extended high-volume clips.

The large majority of Americans favor the strict enforcement of existing gun laws. The gun laws that are being proposed would have no impact on the crimes they are intended to deter. In most cases, the guns are obtained illegally (stolen as in Newtown) or possessed illegally (by a minor in the case above, more commonly by a felon).

There is something basically wrong with America's culture that fails to address the problems of identifying and treating the mentally deranged, or of enforcing existing laws to deter the criminal element.

James of Houston: “. . . enforcing existing laws to deter the criminal element”.
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How should “existing laws” be enforced in the mentioned cases when the guns were freely available by the shooters from legal gun owners (without a legal requirement to use trigger-locks or to store them securely in a gun-safe)?
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In the Newtown rampage the guns weren’t “stolen”. The killer’s mother’s (Nancy Lanza’s) guns that were used by her son for the massacre at Sandy Hook school were freely available to him. She had shared her collection with him on many previous occasions and had trained him to use them.
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Nancy Lanza, a NRA member, and her son were part of exactly that “doomsday prepper” movement mentioned by me in my post of Jan 27th, 22:13, which urges readiness for social chaos by hoarding supplies and training with weapons.
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Nancy Lanza’s sister-in-law, Marsha Lanza, told reporters: “She prepared for the worst. Last time we visited her in person, we talked about prepping – are you ready for what could happen down the line, when the country collapses?”
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Newtown police disclosed that the 52-year-old and her son had five legally registered guns together – at least three of which her 20-year-old son carried with him.
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And: Most victims were shot with a rapid-shot assault rifle featuring a high capacity magazine. Adam Lanza also carried with him two semi-automatic Glock handguns with high capacity 17-round magazines.

Rapid-shot or rapid-fire refers to a gun's rate-of-fire potential.
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The rate of fire is usually measured in rounds per minute (RPM or round/min), or rounds per second (RPS or round/s).
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RPS or RPM refer to the frequency at which a specific weapon can fire or launch its projectiles in the hands of a trained shooter.
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The potential rate of fire can be enhanced via a gun's - more or less - sophisticated loading mechanism; this includes the mechanical speed it takes to extract and eject the spent cartridge case from the weapon's firing chamber, re-cocking the firing mechanism, and loading a new cartridge into the firing chamber of a semi-automatic rifle or hand-gun.
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Popular hand-guns with high RPS-potential, such as the Glock pistols, are ported to virtually eliminate recoil. This type of increased-RPS pistols also have a relatively low slide profile, which holds the barrel axis close to the shooter's hand and makes the pistol more 'comfortable' to shoot. By reducing muzzle rise it allows faster aim recovery in rapid shooting sequences.
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This is why almost all 'pseudocommando' spree killers within the last decade employed Glock pistols or weapons with similar high rate-of-fire potential.

The writer selects and event but does not provide either more information on the event or its relevancy to the overall issue.

A substantial number of the publicized multiple killing shooters exhibit very common characteristics - on prescription drugs for psych reason, attached to video games.

In the scope of total US murders these so called mass killings reflect only a tiny percent of the total. Yet they get most of the press because they make good press. The day after day gang/drug related killings in the major metro areas are ignored but they comprise the vast majority of the killings.

The press would have you believe that nations with strict gun control have lower murder rates than their neighbors but the facts tell a different story according to a well researched Harvard University study.

Calling a semi-automatic rifle an assault weapon is like saying a woman who has had sex outside of marriage is a prostitute. True assault rifles have been banned from general ownership in the US since the days of Al Capone.

Finally, what the press does not tell you is that passage of concealed weapon permit laws have consistently lead to a substantial reduction in crime. The reasons are pretty easy to understand. You go to rob someone and they pull out a large gun the outcome is usually dead dirtbag, arrested dirtbag, dirtbag escapes but is looking for new career. Dirtbag's friends reconsider their choices or move to a liberal state. Crime goes down.

Well said by the two previous posters. All I'll add is that after extensive research into the Patriot Act it did not infringe on the rights of American citizens, however it did retract those same rights from non-citizens. The only item affecting citizens was a lower level of approval authority for wire-taps, those still had to go through a judge and LEA had to prove probable cause if it was a citizen - no change.

Curious. I agree with the tone of the article, in that officials should enforce existing laws. However, I didn't see the Economist's opprobrium when Barrack Obama decided that he would ignore laws concerning immigration. I know it is difficult for the media to display any form of fairness, but it appalls that it display such arrogance as to choose which unlawful behavior to criticize. I support immigration reform and some form of gun control, but I am bothered by the media "pick and choose" process - it defines the media and diminishes otherwise reasonable arguments. The media choosing sides is much more damaging to liberty than the US fixation on guns.
JAC

I'm an American, and consider myself a centrist libertarian. I find myself in arguments regarding this issue frequently.
To address article: 1) It is true that the executive orders were relatively benign, and that most who spout off about them are uninformed; 2) It is also true that many who vehemently oppose this infringement of liberty were strangely silent during the Patriot Act passage; 3) There is some theoretical limit to the right expressed in the 2nd Amendment; and 4) The assessment about the legal authority of local law enforcement is accurately described.
I do take issue with the tone of the article, suggesting those who support gun rights (and their associated responsibilities) must be uninformed, unintelligent, irrational, or partisan; and the notion that there is no desire to "round-up" guns. If assault weapons are banned, is it "forever-more" or retroactive? If retroactive, then it is a gun "round-up" by default. Given the article's effort to point out the hypocrisy between gun rights advocacy and advocacy for other rights, it should also point out the hypocrisy in the current administration's view of local law enforcement. It is the President's prerogative to allocate resources and set priorities in the enforcement of federal law (as was done in the choice not to federally enforce some immigration law), but when local law enforcement chose to enforce these laws (to which they are subject), they were sued to cease and desist by the administration.
In general, for those who cannot fathom the oppositions viewpoint: From where is the right to protect one's life (in many cases the most effective method being a gun) derived? For that matter, from where is any right derived? If the government believes a right comes from the government (rather than purely a responsibility to protect it), then they also believe it can be revoked. Revocation of one right cheapens all rights. Revocation of all rights is enslavement. That is why an informed, intelligent, rational, and non-partisan individual can advocate for gun rights (while choosing not to exercise them). Be wary trading away the rights you don't value, lest someone else be willing to trade away the rights you do.